Sarah's Story
“When the breast specialist left the room, I took a photo of the screen he’d been looking at. When I was back in my car, I looked at the photo and saw the scan had ‘95% malignancy’ on it. That was when I started to get nervous.”
Sarah Cunningham, 44, from Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, was living in America when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2020.
In October 2019, she noticed one of her breasts was heavier and lower than the other, but originally thought it was caused by mastitis, as she was breastfeeding her baby twins at the time.
“The following month, I realised I had a kidney stone,” says Sarah. “I had to get a scan and needed to lift my arm, but I realised I couldn’t lift my right arm above my head without it pulling tightly. The kidney stone pain was so horrific that it distracted me from the breast symptoms.
“My right breast was also very itchy. But I never thought it could’ve been cancer, I just assumed it was mastitis because I’d been breastfeeding.”
Growing more concerned about her symptoms, Sarah got a referral for an ultrasound and afterwards was sent for a mammogram after having difficulty trying to find a GP in the US.
“The mammogram tech was looking at the scan and said it looked like a tumour, and I thought, ‘Well, someone’s going to lose their job. What a wild thing to say to someone when they’ve come in with mastitis!’.”
Sarah went to a breast specialist for a biopsy and, when he left the room, she took a photo of the scan he’d been looking at.
“When I looked at the photo of the scan, I definitely didn’t accept I had cancer,” says Sarah. “It was more that I believed the mammogram tech was correct, but was in shock so didn’t process it for a long time.
“They later showed me a scan, and said my tumour was shaped like an octopus because it was so spread out. The surgeon said lobular carcinoma, which was the type of breast cancer I had, spreads like a dandelion. You have to kill all of the grass, so the dandelion fibres don’t spread.”
After receiving her diagnosis, Sarah was keen to start her treatment as soon as possible.
“I had surgery on Valentine’s Day, a quadrantectomy and a lumpectomy,” says Sarah. “My breast surgeon, Dr Andrew Kenler, was incredible.
"My surgery was meant to be three to four hours, but it went on for six hours – he got every last bit of the cancer that he could. The surgery went on because he was digging out and testing the lymph nodes. He only finished when he got a negative lymph node. He took out 29 lymph nodes.”
The following month, Sarah started chemotherapy, which she finished in September 2020, and then had radiotherapy. Her nails fell off during her treatment, which she found very painful and meant she couldn’t do her daughter’s hair, but she got fingertip gloves which she says were an enormous help.
During this time, she found the Irish Cancer Society Support Line to be a valuable source of information and support.
"I’ve called the Irish Cancer Society Support Line a lot, and the Cancer Nurses always know what they’re talking about. They were really kind to me whenever I called. I asked them about my diagnosis, my treatment and potential side effects, and they were very reassuring and really good with me."
“I found it really helpful, because I needed someone to tell me I’d be OK, and they gave me that. When I had questions, they always had the answers.”
In September 2021, Sarah, her husband Greg and their two young children moved back to Ireland, as the couple wanted to be close their families. By this point, Sarah had completed her cancer treatment but was unsure if it had been effective.
“I went back to my old GP when we came home,” says Sarah. “I was sent to Professor Janice Walshe in St Vincent’s Private Hospital for a PET scan, and she called me afterwards to say I had no evidence of disease. They never told me that in America, so I came home still not knowing if I was OK or not.
“I was also mid-vomiting when Janice called. It’s the reality of it, really. I was sick from all angles, minding two toddlers when the call came in. In all honesty, I actually got no relief from the news, because I knew it could still grow elsewhere via the lymphatic spread. So it was a small win for me before the worry came back.”
Sarah is now doing well and is sharing her story in a bid to encourage others to share their experience of cancer.
“My advice is that you should talk about your cancer and not hide away from it,” says Sarah. “It helps other people when they see you and, if they’re going through something similar, to know they can be OK too.”
